tB

These are notes taken while watching Jason Ryan’s October 2008 webinar on animation:

• One of the most important poses in a bipedal pose is the CONTACT pose; followed by the PASSING pose in importance.
• Jason stresses that in real life, the hip “lifts” on the side of the contact leg (he gives the example of nature footage of a stalking tiger or cat (very pronounced)).
• You then have the “UP” pose or “OVERSHOOT” pose in importance.
• Don’t forget about twisting the hips as you walk!
• A slow walk, large character, will sway MORE side to side simply because his body is OFF BALANCE longer because he’s going slower. A normal, naturalistic walk doesn’t have much side to side sway because we’re not off balance for too long.
• The sway happens on the PASSING poses.
• The overlap on the head (nodding-wise) would happen like this: UP pose, head slightly looking down; CONTACT pose, head level; SQUASH or DOWN pose, head looking slightly up (drag), CONTACT again, head level.
• Regarding the swing on the arms, Jason puts the hand’s highest post on the SQUASH pose as opposed to the contact. These would be the OVERLAP poses for the hands: the arm IS swinging back down, but the hands are DRAGGING behind.
• Jason suggest that to avoid the “knee pop” in walks, that you EASE INTO and EASE OUT OF a straight knee, meaning don’t go from a STRAIGHT knee to a BENT knee in 2 or 3 frames. Add (inbetween) slightly bent knees to your poses.
• Jason follows ALL ARCS and SPACING RELIGIOUSLY! He comes from a traditional animation background. He worked on the SMURFS a while back!
• Constantly think about what’s coming before and what’s coming afterwards. He constantly flips back and forth between he’s poses and SUGGESTS we all do the same!
• Jason’s method is a hybrid of POSE to POSE and INBETWEENING. He definitely thinks about all his poses but get a lot of fluidity out of his inbetweens and ends up animating in a STRAIGHT AHEAD manner.
• WALK CYCLES don’t really exist in FEATURE ANIMATION. The characters are actually animated moving through space.
• Animating actual body parts allows you to COPY and PASTE poses.
• Q: Do hands and feet swing directly forth and back, or do they swing around body parts? And if so, what does it look like? Jason does SWING AROUND the body. Wide on the forward, close to body on the back swing; but he suggests you vary it depending on attitude and taste.
• Angry walk, no CONTACT from UP to DOWN. Deleted CONTACT and went directly from UP to DOWN.
• IF there is a constant in a walk, it would be that it is constantly moving FORWARD.
• When working in CG, you’re working in “ones” since EVERY frame is “exposed.”
• In 2D, you could animate in 4’s or 3’s or 1’s depending on the animation.
• WOFAIM:  Wants, Objectives, Feelings, As-if, Intentions, Moment before. Jason uses it to get into the head of the character.
• To start a walk cycle, from a stand still, throw your character OFF BALANCE to get him to take the first step.
• 16 frames in a FOOT of film. Walk cycle 24frames = 1.5 feet.
• Jason prefers to animate in IK because he prefers to POSE his hands, but thinks FK is perfectly fine if that’s what you like.
• In CG, be aware and make sure that YOU DON’T HIT THOSE INVISIBLE WALLS (the sudden stop of motion)!! Keep momentum going.
• Jason “foot plants” in two frames (at least in this webinar). Jason spends most of his time on the BLOCKING stage and the FINESSING stage. BREAKDOWN stage isn’t too time consuming.
• In things like the graph editor, similar keys have similar values, not EXACT values. This adds a nice bit of variation if ever so slightly.
• Jason DOES NOT offset body part animation, he takes care of overlap and drag in his keys and breakdowns and inbetweens. He believes that offsetting automatically creates DIFFICULTY when you do it. Plus it’s easier to retime things if that comes up.

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